Tuxtla Statuette

JADEITE STATUETTE, THE SO-CALLED "TUXTLA STATUETTE". THREE CASTS AND TWO MOLDS MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL [see A222579-1].

From Olmec website (http://anthropology.si.edu/olmec), retrieved 2004: "The Tuxtla statuette, carved of jadeite diopside, bears columns of incised glyphs corresponding to 162 A.D. The statuette was found by a farmhand while plowing on a hacienda in Hueyapan in Veracruz, Mexico. Figure is wearing a duck bill mask. Incised glyphs decorate all sides of the figure. Dimensions: 15.4 x 9.3 cm."

The statuette was found by a farmer while plowing on a hacienda in Hueyapan, Veracruz at the beginning of the 1900s and has been under Smithsonian stewardship since 1904. The Tuxtla Statuette belongs to the epi-Olmec culture which succeeded the Olmec culture. Carved of jadeite diopside, the statuette is only one of a dozen epi-Olmec texts known to date. The Tuxtla Statuette is the archeological artifact that allowed for epi-Olmec decipherment work to develop. It displays the first epi-Olmec text to have been discovered which includes a Long Count date of 162 CE. as well as one of the most extensive and best preserved texts, making the Tuxtla Statuette especially critical for decipherment of the epi-Olmec syllabary. The language of the texts is the ancestor of contemporary Zoquean languages spoken indigenously in the states of Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca, and nowadays highly endangered.